Chapter 3

It's been seven weeks since I last saw either one of them, seven weeks in utter loneliness, and seven weeks since I received that devastating phone call from the doctor's office asking me to come in to discuss my latest test results.

"Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice but we felt that this was something better said in person than over the phone." I was in a conference room surrounded by a team of doctors, papers, a presentation pulled up on a projector, and no one to help calm my nerves as my heart started to race in anticipation.

"Don't try to sugarcoat it, just give it to me straight."

The doctor sighed, looked over his shoulder to the team behind him, and finally stretched his hand out to take mine. "You have ovarian cancer."

My mind went completely blank as everything seemed to come crashing down around me. He always talked about how much he wanted kids one day and now it seems like it'll never happen, at least not with me. His brother would go on and on about how he couldn't wait until his nieces or nephews were old enough so that he could take them to do all of the fun things that we wouldn't let them do. Their mom would call on occasion asking if I was making her grandmother yet and the relief in her voice when I would tell her not yet was evident.

"It has not spread yet, which is good, but it is always a possibility. Doctor Jones has years of experience as an oncologist so you will be in good hands once we have a date set for surgery."

A second doctor stretched their hand out towards me but this time it was not to comfort me but rather to introduce themselves as the one who would be performing my surgery.

"It's good to meet you but I wish it were under different circumstances. The type of ovarian cancer you have is called epithelial ovarian cancer and is the most common type of ovarian cancer. Now, usually we don't see this occur in 27 year old women but looking at your medical history, I did see that you have a family history of cancer. Can you share any more information about this?"

I rattled off about my mom's diagnosis years earlier and how when we found out her doctors stated that it was stage four; they only gave her six months but she kicked ass for a year, even with chemo. I told them how I didn't know much about my dad or his side of the family because he had passed away as the result of injuries he received when he was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver going the wrong way when I was barely 2 years old.

"I'm sorry to hear about your parents," the doctor got up from her chair and started pointing out the differences on a side-by-side image of a normal, healthy ovary and what mine looked like. It was clear from the images that I was going to be losing my ovary and a fallopian tube on the left side but no one mentioned a word about the right side. I all but tuned out everything these doctors were telling me as the diagnosis continued to sink in.

"Do you have any questions for us, ma'am?"

"Um, I'm sorry, I'm still just trying to process all of this right now. Uh, is there a possibility that even with removing everything on the left and with all of the chemo that it could come back on the right?"

"Anything is possible but it's your choice if you wish to remove your right ovary and fallopian tube."

I sat at the table for a moment, thinking about what my mom had gone through and wondering if I wanted to take that chance. Shaking the thought of my mom suffering from my head, I wiped the tears away from my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket and told them to just go ahead and take both along with whatever else they felt was necessary.

"I'm not ready to die just yet."

"You will need to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks after your surgery and then we'll start you on chemotherapy. You're going to need a strong support system to help get you through this tough time so we're going to give you a few weeks to get that in place but the sooner we get this taken care of the better off you'll be."

I ended up catching a cab to McGinty's after my meeting with the doctors ended and just broke down in front of Doc and everyone in there that night. I begged every person in the bar that night that if they found either of the twins to please have them come home as fast as they could. Just before closing up for the night, Doc called down to the police station to have someone come pick me up so that I didn't have to walk home drunk and alone.

"Hey kid, still no word on the brothers but trust me, when I find them me and the boys are gonna kick their teeth in."

"Thank you Dolly, but I don't think that's a good idea. I don't want you to get in trouble with your job and end up losing it because you're mad at those two knuckleheads."

Dolly had volunteered to take me to my chemo treatment today but I would much rather have had one of the twins with me. When he and Greenly showed up at McGinty's to pick me up I broke down all over again and they promised me that they weren't going anywhere. They swore up and down for hours until I finally fell asleep that they would take turns using their vacation and sick time to make sure I got to the hospital on time, every time, for every treatment until the doctors were satisfied that I was cancer-free.

"When's the last time you even saw the boys?"

"They came home covered in blood with an older man in tow and just briefly told me that he was their dad, Rocco was dead, and they needed to get out of town to lay low for a couple of weeks. But, Dolly that was seven fucking weeks ago! When someone says 'a couple of weeks' it usually means two or three. They don't know about all of this, they don't know that I'll never be able to have kids, they don't-"

"It's gonna be alright kid, I promise. You're going to beat this, you don't need them in your life when all they did was up and leave."

"You're a bullshit liar, you know that? Now, fess up and tell me where they are."

The nervous look in his eye when I glanced over at him sitting in a chair next to me was enough for me to get my suspicions up. I knew these boys better than just about anyone, except their mom. They wouldn't just up and leave without saying something. It's been hell these last seven weeks with no phone calls, no letters, no nothing from either one of them and it just wasn't like them to pull a disappearing act.

"Don't know what you're talking about kid. You sure those drugs they're giving you don't cause you to become delirious?"

"I'm sure, I've been getting speeches left, right, and center about side effects for weeks now and the ones I'm more concerned about are the nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. Now tell me where they are before I rip this needle out of my arm and stab you in the leg."

I watched as a deep sigh escaped from Dolly and he hung his head in defeat. He brought both hands to his face, covering his nose and mouth, muffling his speech. "How long have you known?"

"When Greenly picked me up from the loft on the day of my surgery, just as the nurse had finished prepping me for surgery, his phone went off. When he answered it, he said that they shouldn't have called until after they wheeled me out of the room to the OR. I could hear one of them screaming that they wanted to talk to me but then the doctor came in to see me to explain everything that they were going to be doing and he hung up the phone."

"Do you remember that story on the news about the Saints of South Boston storming into a courtroom and murdering Papa Joe Yakavetta? That was them and their father who did it. Me, Duffy, and Greenly all helped a FBI agent get them in and out. You weren't supposed to know about any of this. After you told us about your cancer, me and Greenly went to the motel they were staying at down by the docks and told them everything.

"Kid, they wanted to be here with you and Duffy was supposed to take you to the hospital the day of your surgery but the boys got pissed when he told them no and one of 'em gave him a black eye. You would've been hitting him with questions if he showed up like that to your place. The FBI agent we were working with, he put them and their father on a cargo ship back to Ireland five weeks ago and told them not to come back unless they wanted to get locked up in the Hoag for the rest of their lives."

I couldn't do anything but cry as Dolly's confession continued for the duration of my treatment. After it was all over, and I was back in the safety of my home, I felt my heart shatter into pieces.